


The Sun Is New

by dragonofdispair



Series: Morning [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: (?), (I think that’s a first for this series), (aka siphoning), (also not in a kinky way), (bug babies!), (but not in a kinky way), Alternate-Universe, Blood Drinking, Consensual Infidelity, Contraception, Homelessness, M/M, Not porn, Pre-War, Prostitution, References to Abortion, References to Eggpreg, Transformer Sparklings, Worldbuilding, negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: Jazz finds Prowl his next lover. Drift has a strange few cycles.
Relationships: Barricade/Drift | Deadlock, Drift | Deadlock/Prowl, Jazz/Prowl
Series: Morning [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553491
Comments: 53
Kudos: 86





	The Sun Is New

**Author's Note:**

> Beta’d by Rizobact

“The sun is new each day.” — Heraclitus

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

# Day One

.

.

.

He was mostly clean, fairly well-fueled, and only mildly electrocuted. He’d had three “friends” this cycle. All of them were bad, but Barricade had been the worst. He usually was. Fortunately, he was also the last and now Drift could head back to the Dead End to lick his wounds. 

This was not what the medic had meant when he’d told him he was “better” than “this”. Whatever “this” was. Dying from a circuit booster overdose, presumably. Well, that wasn’t happening so Drift had succeeded there. It had been an impulse decision, one brought on by the overwhelming despair of losing Gasket and the gang, and now he couldn’t afford the drugs even if he’d wanted them. And he did want them. Badly. But the medic had cleared the trace so the withdrawals hadn’t killed him and Drift no longer had the credits. Or maybe he’d meant the slums in general. Drift wasn’t sure if getting someplace better was possible, not for mechs like him. Selling himself for credits... well Drift had managed to be “better” than that. Theoretically. There weren’t credits involved, at least. 

It wasn’t like anyone was going to take an illiterate, broken down speedster for any sort of legitimate job. 

He’d thought pretty seriously about trying to off himself again, but without the boosters to dull the pain, he couldn’t put his meager responsibilities out of mind long enough to carry through with it. Taking that gun and going merc probably could have done everything the medic had implored him to do. Get out of the slums. Stop having sex with skeezes to survive. But—

 _Chee! Chee! Chee!_ Two shrill voices could be heard clearly even from outside the collapsed basement Drift had found to shelter them for the day.

—he couldn’t have taken Gasket’s hatchlings with him. 

“Hush!” he snapped softly. If they kept crying like that, they’d be found and taken and then Drift really would put that stolen gun to his own helm and pull the trigger. 

They didn’t listen. If anything they cheeped louder. They were hungry. Drift could only feed them once a cycle, which wasn’t ever enough, but at least now they only started crying around sunset when Drift got “home”. 

He hurried over to the cart he’d cobbled together from an abandoned wheelbarrow and a cage meant for turbodogs. His spark twinged whenever he saw the pair of segmented spheres tucked away in there. He’d done his best to build a nest that was comfortable in there for them, but even he knew that hatchlings didn’t belong in a cage. But what else could he do? If he didn’t contain them, they’d wander off and be taken. If they were lucky they’d be sold to a brothel or as future gladiators. If they weren’t, they’d be used as someone’s food.

“I’m here,” Drift tried to soothe. He opened the cage and let the two hatchlings tumble out onto him, all gangly limbs, antennae, pedipalps and clinging little carapaces. They gnawed insistently on his armor and he flinched at the renewed shrillness of their cries. “Shh. Shh. Quiet.” 

Drift didn’t even know if they understood him yet. They were past their first molt but he didn’t remember being a hatchling himself and he didn’t know which molt corresponded with which processor developments. 

To quiet them, he opened up the armor on his wrist and bit two holes in the energon line there. Since they had never been fed any other way, they got into position and latched onto his arm without further coaxing. Drift winced, but the crying quieted as the little siphonists sucked him dry.

His feelings were mixed. He was glad there were only two. He couldn’t imagine trying to keep a third fueled this way without collapsing completely. At the same time... Gasket had laid three eggs, right before his death. Three. The third hadn’t hatched. Drift had waited, holed up in Gasket’s nest, for it to until he’d been forced to go out and the two who had hatched had gnawed through it to drink the fuel inside their sibling’s shell. He hadn’t seen a dead hatchling, but they could have eaten it. He’d never know if it had been laid already dead, or if it had died because he’d overdosed on boosters and the medic had kept him in recovery when he should have been brooding his friend’s eggs.

They protested when he shook them off his arm, but they were quieter, sleepy protests. Drift hoped they would curl up in their segmented shells and fall asleep. He was so tired... but no such luck. Fuller tanks might be making them lethargic, but they had spent all day cooped up in their wagon-cage and wanted to play. 

They didn’t have any real toys, but he had a large plastic gasket that one — which Drift thought of as Blue, because of its blue optics — was content to chew on and chase around the small space. The other, Green because of its green optics, needed to be exhausted chasing a coil of wire before it would settle. 

So Drift forced himself to stay awake, despite his sudden need to recharge, and play with them. 

Some cycles he was terrified that one of his clients would spark him, and he wouldn’t realize in time to pop the shells in his egg sack before they outgrew his armor and hardened. Gasket had been the one to recognize the signs that they — he and the rest of the now-dead gang — had sparked. Drift wasn’t sure what to watch for. Then he would have his own clutch to look after too. That’d be... impossible. Without Gasket, Drift probably wouldn’t even survive long enough to lay. Gasket had done a lot for him.

Blue and Green tired quickly. Drift wasn’t sure if that was normal when they were this young, or due to their own chronic lack of fuel, but he was grateful for it. Carefully, he scooped each of them up one at a time and tucked them back into the nest-cage and covered them with the scraps of flimsy he’d found to cushion and keep them warm. He packed up their “toys” with them and Blue cuddled its gasket like it was a doll. He desperately hoped that tucked away into their ball-shells, they could keep themselves a little warmer. 

Once they were contained, he took the time to bandage his arm. The energon had stopped flowing to the injury, but if he didn’t want them to rupture during his races tomorrow he had to reinforce the weakened lines. Hopefully, the medic hadn’t noticed the missing temp patches. 

Frag, he wanted to just lay down and recharge now. 

He didn’t.

He dug the gun out from where he’d secured and hidden it under the wagon so he could access it, then eased the wagon out of the hiding place and into the nearly empty streets. He wished he could risk leaving them here for another cycle, but he knew their crying would have been heard. He’d already fought off scavengers and kidnappers that had been attracted to the noise and learned: find another place and don’t leave them in the same spot twice.

They slept through the cold and bumpy ride. 

He ended up under an old, broken bridge. A place like this was usually prime real estate, but it looked like the camp of vagrants that was usually here had been washed out by the most recent rain. There were still ruby ravens picking over the corpses. A bad omen, one most slum dwellers would avoid for a few more nights. He shoved the cage-wagon up into the crumbling bridge supports with all his strength. Which wasn’t much. He’d prefer to hide them higher up, but they needed to be kept in the cage. 

It was very open and the breeze made Drift’s armor itch with paranoia. He hunted around until he found enough glass to cover the ground with shards. There. If someone approached, he’d hear the footsteps. If the ravens stuck around to nest in the rafters, he’d hear them too, but they might have been only here to feed.

Then he climbed up into the rafters himself. It was freezing up here, but he just huddled into his armor and braced himself. If he’d had anything to keep him warm, he would have given them to Blue and Green anyway. He made sure he had good lines of sight down to the ground with the gun, then let himself fall into a very light recharge.

.

.

.

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

# Day Two

.

.

.

At the tables outside the grab-and-go energon cafe, Drift clutched his empty cup (a plastic holiday-themed cup for this chain of stores that someone had thrown away once the holidays were done) and tried to look lonely and appealing. He’d convinced one of the other professional friends to write up a flyer for him, one with tear-away tabs with the address of the spot he’d chosen printed on them. She’d been nice and written him up a proper “dating profile” describing himself (“slim, breakable-looking speedster”), his interests (aka “what he wanted in payment, which was fuel and lots of it”), and preferred frametype and personality type (“black and white and horny”), and whatever else she thought would help him attract clients. Long romantic walks by the riverfront or some other slag like that. Drift didn’t care what it said as long as it worked. He’d kept it, and now patiently recopied it once every few cycles to hang up on the comms relay tower next to the police track with dozens of others. Advertising as a professional friend was different than advertising as a streetwalker. His clients weren’t really interested in romantic walks. 

He noticed the mech enter the cafe but didn’t actually note him beyond the fact that he wasn’t the right frametype for his usual clientele until he set a full cup of steaming fuel in front of Drift and slid into the chair across from him.

Drift looked at his newest customer and blinked. The mech was black and white, but he also had a bold set of blue and red stripes painted down his chest. Drift might have thought he was an undercover officer, but even undercover cops had the second set of headlights that would flash red and blue when they turned on their sirens. This mech only had the one set. “You’re not an Enforcer,” he accused. 

The mech placed Drift’s flyer down on the table between them. Only one tab had been torn off since last cycle. “Does that matter to you?” he asked curiously. 

It didn’t, but, “I don’t take credits.” Not anymore. He needed the fuel more than the temptation of an easy escape into boosters, and he couldn’t afford to be arrested. He scowled at the flyer. It was very bad form to take the whole flyer. He needed that to stay up!

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not offering credits.” The mech tapped the flyer, right over what Lightline had said was a list of suggested date venues. Drift had prioritized quantity over quality. “How about the Golden Parrock?”

The most expensive suggestion on his list, and a buffet. None of his other “friends” ever sprung for that, and Drift couldn’t help but feel his mouth water. “Sure. Sounds like a date.”

“Perfect. My name’s Jazz.”

There was a note of expectation tacked onto the end of the sentence and Jazz paused. Drift’s name was on his flyer, but some mechs... “I’m Drift,” he said obediently.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Drift nodded. Of course it was. Drift wasn’t sure he’d feel the same since he didn’t know why this mech had decided to poach from the Enforcers’ friends, but at least one of them would get some pleasure out of this meeting. He started gulping down the grab-and-go fuel Jazz had bought to introduce himself with, but was stopped by a gentle hand. “No need to hurry. I’m not in a rush, and I actually would like to get to know you.”

Drift would have insisted on getting this “date” and the frag afterward over with as quickly as possible if Jazz had chosen one of the cheaper restaurants. He needed at least three, preferably four, dates to be able to run the race and still have fuel left for Blue and Green, but... all he could eat buffet. And he wasn’t sure this mech actually wanted to race.

“Flyer says it all,” Drift grunted, not really into the idea of discussing his circumstances with anyone, much less a total stranger. But he could recognize a cue to ask his “partner” about himself. “What about you? What’s your job?”

“I’m a musician,” Jazz said easily. He sipped at his drink, and Drift took that as his hint to match his pace to his. “Solo violinist. Making the club rounds for tips. Sometimes join up with a couple of buddies as a quartet to play at bondings and stuff.”

Admittedly Drift didn’t know much of anything about music or players. One of Gasket’s old gang had played a flute-like thing made from some scrap pipe on the street corner and brought in some cash that way. Jazz was way too shiny for that to be what he meant. He was closer to... to the rock stars Drift saw on vids in shop windows. They never had any trouble finding a frag. So, “What’s a musician doing asking someone like me out on a date?”

Jazz just quirked a smile underneath his blue visor. “We’ll get to that. What about you? You do anything else for a living?”

Drift wanted to lie, but he was pretty sure the state of his plating or something else gave him away. “Nope. Just this.”

“Kind of hard to earn rent money like this,” Jazz prodded, taking another sip of his drink. Drift drank with him. 

Drift snorted but didn’t admit he would have _loved_ to have to worry about rent. 

Jazz laid his hand out flat on the table, and automatically Drift put his hand on top, pressing their palms together. Instead of just holding it, though, Jazz used the grip to pull Drift’s arm closer and stroked along the edge of his armor. Drift wondered if he was trying to arouse him because if so it wasn’t working but he should shiver or something to make him think it was—

“Drugs or cutting?” Jazz asked neutrally, and Drift realized Jazz could see the temp patch through the gap. 

“I’m clean!” Drift snapped, snatching his hand back. “I haven’t touched a booster in—” he snapped his mouth closed. Months, he’d been about to say. Since his overdose and the eggs had hatched. Jazz didn’t deserve to know any of this. 

“I’ll accept that,” Jazz said. “Sit down, Drift.” Drift, who hadn’t realized he’d started to get up, sat back down. “It’s a fair question. I don’t want to go through all of this just to lose you.”

“Ain’t gonna keel over in the next few joors.”

“No. You’re not.” Jazz sighed. “Fine. Let’s move onto some more immediately practical questions: what’s your top speed and acceleration?”

This was more familiar ground. Maybe Jazz wanted to race after all. “I’m told I can hit 95 in less than a klik from a dead stop. Can sprint at about 200 and keep 110 for as long as my fuel holds out.” 

Jazz paused as though doing some calculations in his head, then asked, “Turning radius?”

“10.5 when I’m at speed. About half that when I’m idling. _And,”_ he added proudly, “I can drift.” He didn’t remember learning the skill, but the first time he’d done it, his friend for the cycle had called him a “tricky slagger” and all those after that had seemed impressed when he mentioned it.

Jazz was not as impressed as Drift had hoped. “Fuel capacity?” That was a tricky question. Drift needed to still have fuel left to feed the hatchlings and himself at the end of the cycle, and he’d never had just one, generous, client. He hesitated. “If I feed you afterward as well as before,” Jazz clarified, seeming to realize his dilemma, “how long can you continue driving at your top speeds?”

Drift hesitated to answer that, but if he was _going_ to get fed afterward... “About two joors,” he hedged. It was really closer to three, but Jazz wasn’t going to spring for a buffet _after_ he’d had his pleasure. “But only half that, in ten klik increments, if I’m sprinting.”

“I like what I’m hearing so far.”

Jazz finished off his cup and Drift hurried to follow as they stood.

Most of Drift’s “dates” enjoyed him hanging off them like a trophy, or at least holding his hand and being creepily possessive. Jazz held his hand long enough to indicate that Drift was to walk next to him, then somehow took over his own space in a way that was immensely confident and almost made him seem bigger and faster than he was. Drift was walking side by side with him, and he knew the way to the Golden Parrock so he didn’t need to _follow_ anyone... But Jazz still managed to lead, to seem in front of him, despite that equality. 

Drift wasn’t sure what to make of it honestly. He’d seen a couple of Enforcers do that with their dates, but no one who picked _him_ up had managed. And Jazz did it without putting a single hand on him.

Jazz held the door at the restaurant, then paid for both of them at the entrance podium. The Golden Parrock was almost empty at this time of the cycle and they were told to find their own seats. Jazz chose a booth in the corner that offered a measure of visual privacy and was far enough away from the other patrons to discourage eavesdropping as well. 

He sat Drift down — “Stay.” — then went to retrieve his fuel. 

Drift fidgeted awkwardly. He’d never actually been in here and he wasn’t sure what the protocol was. At least no one was looking at him like the words “homeless - doesn’t belong here” were written across his forehead. No one was looking at him at all, in fact. Everyone was absorbed in their own conversations. 

Jazz returned with two cups of fizzy midgrade and two plates of energon noodles in an oil sauce. Drift wasn’t sure if he should be offended by the mech’s presumption. 

He could get his own later, he decided after sniffing the flavorful dish and digging in hungrily. He kept the presence of mind to remember to use the utensils and not dribble everywhere in his haste, but as he finished his first plate and his drink and saw that Jazz was neatly picking his way through the first third of his plate still, he realized he’d still eaten impolitely fast. 

“Go get another plate,” Jazz ordered before Drift could start wondering if he should do that or start licking his plate. “That’s why we’re here.”

Drift did not have to be told twice.

Picking up a new plate at the end of the line, Drift was a little glad Jazz had gotten his first plate. He was just a little less hungry now and could remind himself to stick to reasonable portions. He got more noodles, of course, but floundered a bit when it came to the other things on offer. 

Reasonable portions, he reminded himself and took small scoops of everything to try. He could come back for more. He didn’t have to worry about Jazz getting impatient and leaving without paying him; Jazz had already paid for his pleasure. That was the one thing about being a professional friend that was objectively better than a streetwalker: his clients paid first. 

He did make sure to grab an extra scoop of some little cake-looking things (he didn’t think they were really cakes) to see if he could wrap them in a napkin and sneak them out. Maybe he could start teaching the little color-coded leeches that other things besides him were food. If not, he could always eat them himself.

He refilled his cup with midgrade and returned to the table to find Jazz watching him with a weird little smile on his faceplate. “What?” he snapped.

“Just getting to know you,” Jazz responded, then nonchalantly twirled some of his noodles up onto his utensil to pop into his mouth. 

Grumbling, Drift grabbed an extra napkin and spread it out on the booth seat next to him, trying to decide when the best time to filch the not-cakes would be. 

“I didn’t pick your flyer at random off the post,” Jazz commented as he took another bite of his noodles. “I saw you last cycle, in the locker room getting ready for your run with Barricade.” 

_Frag._ Drift tried to remember this mech, but for the life of him, he couldn’t bring an image of him to mind. There were always others in the locker room, more at some times than others, and he’d known he wasn’t alone, but he couldn’t bring anyone specific to mind. He’d been _busy._ “What of it?”

“How did that go?”

 _That_ he knew the answer to. “None of your fragging business,” he snapped. No one hired shareware who blabbed. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Jazz quirked that smile again. “I’m not asking what kind of lay Barricade was. I can guess that it wasn’t fun for you. I want to know about the chase beforehand. How long was it?” 

Drift shrugged and concentrated on peeling this... thing that needed to be peeled before he ate it. “Dunno. Few breems.”

“Obviously he caught you. You throw the chase or did he collar you fairly?”

Drift shrugged again and put the peeled thing into his mouth whole. It was some sort of sweet-sour squishy fuel thing. Maybe he’d wandered into the dessert area without realizing? Either way, it wasn’t too messy and the wrapping meant it’d be hard to squish into paste accidentally. He put it on his list of things to try and filch. 

“Bit of both,” he admitted. Drift _could_ just stick to the outside of the track and use his speed to evade Barricade, or anyone really, for longer, but that wasn’t what he was being paid to do. Still, once he turned into the maze of fake buildings and slag, evading the better-trained officers was pretty futile. If Jazz had been in the track with another officer last cycle surely he knew that. “Why? You looking for someone to take a black and white stalker off your hands today?”

“Please don’t call my conjunx endura a stalker,” Jazz warned with a note of steel in his voice. 

_Ack!_ “M’sorry.”

“You are right, though,” Jazz continued as if Drift hadn’t spoken. “We are looking for someone who can provide more of a challenge during the chase portion than I can.” He frowned down at his plate. “We may have to sponsor you to do some combat driving courses.” He tapped his fingers against the side of his glass pensively, which was the only hint to Drift that he might not know how to well this was going to work.

Trying to make up for his earlier mistake, “Don’t need classes,” he assured as he shrugged. “I can be plenty challenge. You already paid anyway. I’m always up for making new friends.” He tried his most charming smile.

He knew the chase was just a formality anyway. Sure, every officer said what they wanted was a challenge, but what they really wanted was to just cuff him and frag him raw. That was fine. That was what Drift was selling. 

More than likely, Jazz just wanted a break from that baton. Fair enough. Drift didn’t exactly like it either, but he had Blue and Green to feed and his frame was his only asset. 

“I don’t want to get Prowl a _friend,”_ Jazz scoffed, bringing Drift’s web of assumptions crashing down. “I want to get him a _hetairo.”_

A... _companion?_ “Wut?”

“An _erastís,”_ Jazz clarified. Lover? “I will take on your expenses — up to a reasonable amount, of course — and you will be his and his alone. No more clients. No other lovers.”

Drift choked on one of the hard cake-things.

.

.

◇─◇──◇──◇─◇ 

.

.

“So how often’s yer conjunx need track time?” Drift asked, trotting to keep up with Jazz as they walked briskly through downtown towards the warehouse district. He still couldn’t quite believe this was real. 

He’d fetched a third plate to buy himself time to think and come back to find his napkin full of filched nibbles had been taken by the waitstaff. It had been kind of a long shot anyway. He’d finished that up, this time eating slowly to so Jazz wouldn’t make them leave before he was ready. 

Just one client? For... however long this Prowl character wanted him? It was kind of a lot to think about. But if he didn’t _need_ to find three or five new clients every cycle to keep Gasket’s hatchlings fed... Finally, he’d worked himself up to asking just how much was a “reasonable amount” of his expenses and instead of answering Jazz had stood up and led him to... wherever they were going now.

“I’ll draw up a schedule,” Jazz answered, walking briskly. He was slightly shorter than Drift, and not as long in the legs, but he was keeping a demanding pace. “But not more than once every month or so. You won’t be replacing all of my own chases with him.”

“Once a month.” Once a _month!?!_ “What am I supposed to do in between?”

“I don’t care,” Jazz stated flatly. They dodged a large cargo-hauling alt coming out of a warehouse and turned a corner. Jazz stopped so suddenly that Drift nearly ran into him. He opened a smaller door there and went in, clearly expecting Drift to follow. 

Drift hesitated. Being a streetwalker, or a “friend”, wasn’t exactly the safest job on Cybertron at the best of times, but even he knew better than to casually follow a client off the street and into an unknown building. Alleys were hazardous, and private, enough! But the lure of only having one client, who he only had to have (violent and painful) sex with once a month, or even only once a cycle... well, against his better judgment it drew him past the darkened threshold. 

The door opened directly into a stairway. Jazz was already halfway up and retreating quickly. Drift closed the door and hurried after him.

A landing, and another locked door, and Drift found himself in a... he wasn’t sure what to call it. There were no furnishings to give him a hint. The floor was a neutral beige tile and the walls were an even more neutral bare, unpainted concrete. It was dusty and smelled faintly musty and Drift could hear the noise from the warehouse below. But it was also open and bright with large windows on all four of the walls. It was sheltered from the wind and rain and the ravens. It was warm. 

Slowly he managed to recognize an energon storage unit and dispenser over near the cabinets. A sink. A bathtub.

Drift turned back to Jazz, wondering what the frag this was. 

“It’s too big to rent as a studio,” Jazz explained-without- _actually_ -explaining. “And I’d have to remodel to rent it as a one or two-bedroom, which would cost more than it’s worth. I’ve been trying to rent it as office space, but as you’ve no doubt noticed, the soundproofing on this place is nonexistent. No one willing to pay what it’s worth as an office location is willing to put up with that racket.”

On cue, Drift heard the shrill **BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!** of a forklift alt backing up with a full load somewhere below them.

“I should just lower my asking price and rent it out as a dancer’s studio or artist’s commune or something,” Jazz mused as he continued his not-explanation. “But I get enough from renting the warehouse that I can do without the second renter. Have gone without a second renter for quite some time.”

“What’s all that gotta do with me?” 

“You asked what a reasonable expense was.” Jazz waved his hand at the space. “This is a reasonable expense. I won’t pay your rent if you choose to live elsewhere, but I am willing to provide this place. I’m not,” he chuckled, rueful and nostalgic, “going to be dumb enough to give the building to you outright, but I will let you live in the space. Rent-free.”

Drift’s jaw dropped and he looked around again. How the frag could he say no to this? “I’ll do it.” 

“I’ll arrange for energon to be delivered,” Jazz added and Drift choked on his engine. Free fuel too!?! “Beyond that, you will have to provide for yourself, or convince Prowl to give it to you as a gift.”

Gifts? “How likely’re gifts?”

“Not very.” Jazz chuckled. “You’re not exactly erotévomai,” falling in love, “though I expect you to act like it in public. You are his hetairo, not mine.”

Drift almost asked if Jazz was prepared for the blow to his rep that would cause, then snapped his mouth closed. He didn’t care about Jazz’s rep, and he didn’t want to say anything that might make him withdraw his far-too-generous offer. 

“In all ways, you are to act like you are in love, or at least have seduced him,” Jazz continued. “He will tell his coworkers I’ve balked at so much racetrack time. They’ll understand and even applaud him for taking on a lover without my knowledge. The two of you will pretend I do not know what is going on.”

“Kind of a tall order.” Drift wandered over to the far window to look down on the street. There may not have been any soundproofing, but the walls and windows felt solid enough. “Since you’re footing the bill.”

Jazz shrugged. “I know how to shuffle my money to hide a hetairo.”

Drift almost asked _how_ he knew, then bit his tongue. He could guess that either Jazz had a legion of kept lovers he was already hiding from his conjunx, or that he’d been someone’s hetairo. Either way, kind of a sore subject. “Gotcha.”

“My other requirements.”

Right. It couldn’t be that easy. “Listening.”

“As I said: you will take on no other lovers or clients while you are Prowl’s hetairo.” Jazz’s tone was now brusque and businesslike. “I won’t have my conjunx cuckolded.” He smiled; it was not a cheerful expression and it nicely showed off the fangs Drift had never seen on a high-class mech like Jazz before. He suppressed the urge to show his own fangs and nodded, lowering his gaze submissively. “You’ll use protection against sparking,” Jazz continued, “which I will provide if needed. If you need a lesson on how to use it, I’ll provide that too.”

Drift wasn’t sure why he was squirming in embarrassment. He’d done a lot worse with clients than fumble through putting on a vinyl or whatever Jazz had in mind, and even if he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge Jazz in public as such, Jazz _was_ still his client. 

Jazz showed his teeth again and bristled his armor. “You will remain drug and crime-free, and I will check up on you to ensure it. I expect you to be an asset to my conjunx.” 

Drift hunched his shoulders and nodded. Jazz might be asking for him to do, or appear to do, a very high-caste thing (slum mechs couldn’t afford to keep a hetairo, though some of the gang leaders kept harems), but he was not acting like a high-caste mech. He was negotiating like a crime boss, making his threats with his teeth like a street scrapper with a shiv. Drift hoped he could have remained defiant against the posh, high-class words, but combined with the very visceral threats from a fellow slum dweller... Drift was submitting.

“And I will need a bill of clean health from a medic stating you are free of disease before you move in,” Jazz finished up. “Do you need me to arrange a doctor’s visit?”

“No.” Drift sulked. “I can take care of it.

“Good.” Jazz unsubspaced something and held it out to Drift. Drift held out his hands to take it and found himself holding a takeout box. He looked inside and found it full of cake-things and squishy peel-wrapped things and energon noodles from the restaurant. “You may collect your keys when I have your health certificate. Your first delivery of energon will be waiting.”

.

.

◇─◇──◇──◇─◇ 

.

.

So Drift _might_ have been lying when he’d promised he could get a clean bill of health from a medic without help. But this was far too good an opportunity to pass up! The loft above the warehouse was the _perfect_ place to hide Blue and Green. 

Not a bolthole or a bridge or a crash pad or a gang hideout. An apartment! His own apartment!

Jazz had fed him well enough that he would have actually lost fuel racing if he’d gone back to the takeaway place to wait for another friend to take him on another date. Jazz still had his poster anyway; it’d take him joors to trace out another one, and he didn’t have a clean sheet of flimsy on hand to do it anyway. Not that Drift was planning on going back fragging random Enforcers if this really worked out! But his relatively high fuel levels meant that he could slink back to the Dead End with a clear conscience well before The Clinic closed. 

The building was unassuming. It was currently in the Darklands’ territory, and the gang’s sign had been painted prominently on all four sides of the building and right on the doorway. To Drift’s optics it was prominent, anyway. To someone who didn’t know what to look for, it probably blended right in with the layers and layers of gang signs that covered the building, one painted on top of the other as this bit of ground was traded, fought over, and changed hands. 

The Darklands let the medic and his two paramedics through with unconscious patients readily enough, but anyone walking in on their own power needed to come with a suitable bribe. Fortunately, Drift had brought one, in the form of a news flimsy from one of the free boxes downtown. Sure it was public information, but it was public information the Darklands wouldn’t otherwise have which made it valuable enough to buy safe passage for the rest of the cycle.

The medic wasn’t as easily impressed. 

“Hi, Ratchet.” He tried for a carefree, charming grin. He’d made it into the waiting room and now he just needed to make his case and not get kicked out. 

“Don’t you ‘hi, Ratchet’ me, you pest,” the medic grumbled. “Didn’t I tell you to go to the job office and get out of this hell hole?”

“Um... Not exactly.”

“Really. Because I could have sworn...”

“I’m trying!” Drift yelped. “It’s not that easy!”

The medic stopped in his tracks and sighed, deflating. “It isn’t.” He looked Drift over critically and Drift squirmed. “At least you stayed clean. No boosters.”

He stood up straighter, because, yeah, he’d done that. No matter how much he still wanted the drugs. But he had Blue and Green and now a _new apartment_ and he just needed... “I need a certificate of good health,” he blurted out. “Stating I’m free of, you know, stuff.”

“Interfacing diseases,” Ratchet stated flatly. “You know I can’t help you sell yourself. If I’m aiding and abetting, I’ll get thrown in jail. And lose my donations and grants, which is probably worse.”

“It’s not so I can sell myself,” Drift lied. As long as Jazz wasn’t paying him in _cash,_ it wasn’t prostitution. It was the same loophole professional friends skated through on. Ratchet didn’t care about the loopholes, though. Sex for food was the same as sex for money to him. “I found a legit thing, but they’re not hiring without a doc’s signature. Please, Ratchet. This is my only ticket out.” 

Ratchet sighed. “It’s not like I can run those tests off the books. I send your samples in and someone will ask questions about it.”

“Could just sign the flimsy and not run the tests?” Ack! Death glare! “Joking!”

“No you weren’t,” the medic growled and Drift skittered back, toward the door. Damn. He was going to have to go begging to Jazz for a medical visit after all. “And I won’t falsify a certificate of health for you. Or anyone.”

“Fine.”

“I will make you a deal though.”

Drift perked up. A deal? “What kind of deal?” Drift didn’t have anything anyone, much less a nice high-caste mech like Ratchet, would want. Except for sex. Because sex was a thing he knew high-class mechs bought. Jazz was buying him right now. But as far as anyone in the slums knew, Ratchet was celibate. Everyone from the streetwalkers to the professional blackmailers agreed: he didn’t interface with anyone. Drift would bet money (except for the part where he didn’t have any money of course) that there was _someone,_ but he didn’t have the resources to find out who it was or what he could offer that might catch the medic’s interest.

“I’ll finesse the paperwork and run your tests,” Ratchet laid out slowly, “and if you come back clean, I’ll sign your certificate. In return, I want to see that clutch of babies rumor says you’ve been toting around.”

He wanted to see Blue and Green? Immediately Drift’s hackles went up and he bared his teeth, bristling. “Why?”

“Do I really need to start listing off all the ways they could get sick and die in this hell hole?” Ratchet snapped back, which only made Drift bristle more. He started regretting not bringing his gun. He’d scooted by the bridge long enough to see the wagon-cage was still there but hadn’t gone up to retrieve anything so as not to wake them before he could stay and feed them. “I’ll start with,” Ratchet hissed, _“malnutrition_ and go down in order of common occurrence from there.”

“They’re fine,” Drift growled back, showing his teeth like Jazz had. Jazz hadn’t had to make any specific threats and Drift wasn’t sure why he should be scared of him, but he was. But Drift was scary too. He’d killed people! _Hiss!_ “I’m taking care of them!”

Ratchet didn’t posture back. Instead, he sighed and released the tension from his frame, though he didn’t slick his armor down or hunch his shoulders to indicate he was submitting. “I know you are, kid. All I want is to check them over like I’m checking you over. You’ll be in the room the whole time.”

“They’re perfectly fine,” Drift snarled again, pressing his advantage even though part of him was confused by the lack of fight or surrender. “There’s nothing wrong with them!”

“I’m sure there isn’t,” Ratchet soothed. “I just want to take care of them.” He folded his arms above his chest, which was neither passive nor aggression. It was just stubborn. “Regardless of why. That’s my deal. I want to give them a check-up, and in return, I’ll pull some strings and get your tests done.”

Drift’s armor flicked, agitated. 

“You can even stay here until your results come back,” the medic offered, sweetening the deal with an offer of a safe place to hole up. “One of the empty quarantine rooms, one with a door that locks.”

“You can still get in,” Drift reasoned because of course neither Ratchet or Jazz or _anyone_ would give him a place that they couldn’t get into if they wanted. That was just how it was. 

“I’m the only one who could break quarantine though,” Ratchet coaxed. “And you’ll hear me coming all the way down the hall. This box,” he tapped his own windshield with one finger, “does not sneak.”

And Drift had a gun. He didn’t say that, but it had been his safety net when nesting under bridges, in flophouses, and in ruins up to this point. It could be his safety net dealing with one weirdo medic. “Deal.”

Ratchet’s face twisted in distaste when Drift insisted they spit on their hands to shake on it, but he did it. Never mind that Drift could never possibly afford to hire Weasel or his scent-tracking hounds if Ratchet reneged on the deal. It was a threat that kept everyone honest. Ish.

It wasn’t sunset yet, so Blue and Green weren’t screaming for fuel when Drift went to collect them. Listening to the silence, Drift actually panicked just a little until he’d climbed up into the bridge’s struts to check they were both still there. 

They were, curled up into their segmented sphere-shells like a pair of huge ball bearings nestled into the scraps.

They woke as soon as Drift shifted the wagon and started to ease it down to the ground. _Cheee! Cheee! Cheee!_ they screamed. 

“Hold on,” Drift muttered to them. “I’ll have you out and fed as soon as we’re on the ground, ‘kay?”

Not ‘kay, according to them. _Cheee! Cheee! **CHEEEEE!**_

Leaving the gun in plain view as a threat to any observers, Drift carelessly brushed away the glass he’d left on the ground so he could open the cage and quiet them. They stopped screaming, but he could feel their pedipalps and their sharp little mouthparts nudging and gnawing at the edges of his armor and they whined and chittered insistently. 

“Nope. Nope. Come on. I’ve got something better than me to eat this time.” Pushing them off him was futile so he didn’t bother and just opened up the takeout container to pull out a cake-thing. He put it between Blue’s mouthparts and his plating. “Eat this. Mmm… tasty, isn’t it?”

Drift actually thought he’d be able to, you know, _not_ cut himself open for them this time. Blue took the cake-thing and gnawed at it readily enough.

Then the cake thing broke into a million pieces, disintegrating. An adult’s tongue could still lick it up (and Drift was definitely going to do that as soon as he got the chance!) but the hatchling’s mouthparts couldn’t grasp the tiny crumbs. “Frag.”

_Cheep!CHEEEEEEEE!_

“Yeah. Yeah. I’ll do this right.” Maybe later when they weren’t so hungry he’d experiment to see which of the various things Jazz had given him in the take out container the hatchlings could manage, but right now he didn’t have much of a choice. “You’re dumb little leeches. It’s your fault I get called a siphonist.” It wasn’t, but he could tell them they were. They couldn’t understand him. Hopefully. “Well, it’s definitely your fault Jazz thought I was still doing boosters,” he grumbled in not-apology.

He tried to find a spot on his arms that hadn’t been patched over a billion times recently and failed. Most of his legs too. He ended up contorting himself into a pipe pretzel to bite a pair of holes for them right above his ankle. They nestled up to their feeding stations and quieted to suckle from his fuel.

Well-fed from the buffet and with the container of takeout to snack on, he let them suck on him for as long as they needed. Maybe if they weren’t hungry they’d go back into recharge and he wouldn’t have to play with them tonight? Primus, or someone, must have been half-listening. Blue released his fuel line and toppled backward, curling up into its sphere shell as it did so. Its antennae and pedipalps folded flat into the notches for them in its shell, and a klik later, it was out like a light. It didn’t even need its gasket to chew on. 

Green, however, still wanted to play.

Resigning himself to it, Drift patched up his leg with his newly filched temp patches then coaxed Green into a game of tug of war with its favorite wire.

When Green finally fell back into recharge and Drift had them both tucked into the cage-nest, he looked up at the sky. It was late. Hopefully, his safe passage into Darklands’ territory hadn’t run out yet. 

Since he was going to be openly traveling through gang territory, Drift tucked the gun down into the wagon, under the turbohound crate and out of sight. He didn’t want to provoke them. He put what was left of his takeout under there too. He didn’t want that stolen, though if necessary he’d trade it to a Darklands sentry to extend his safe passage for the less than a joor he needed to get to the clinic.

“Here we go.” Hopefully, his tests would come up clean, because he, _they,_ really needed what Jazz had offered them.

.

.

◇─◇──◇──◇─◇ 

.

.

Of course, Ratchet disapproved of the wagon-cage. Drift didn’t care. 

Once ensconced in the quarantine room that would be his bolthole for the next few cycles, he kept himself between the wagon and the medic. He didn’t let Ratchet near the hatchlings while he took vials and swabs of every fluid Drift had to check for everything he could think of. He even took a sample of his myomer musculature and metal shavings off his armor, struts, and spark chamber. That had hurt and Ratchet had offered a pain killer, but Drift just gritted his teeth and told him to get the frag over with it.

“I’m going to claim I’m spot-checking the population for several infectious diseases,” Ratchet explained like Drift cared as he shone a light into his mouth to look around then took a swab of oral fluid, “of which the most common interfacing diseases will only be a small number. Your new employer won’t be able to say you’re a carrier of anything.”

“Whatever.”

“Get up on the table, pest,” Ratchet commanded. “I need samples of your transfluid and valve lubricant, and to visually check the area for sores, lesions or growths.”

“You wanna frag you gotta pay,” Drift snapped automatically, bristling. 

“I’m _not_ going to frag,” Ratchet snapped back. He backed up to go to the sink and counter to seal up the oral swab in a test tube. He turned his back on Drift to change his gloves and prepare the swabs for the next set of samples. “Most interfacing diseases,” he explained calmly without looking at Drift, “only leave any trace of infectious particles in interfacing fluids. Others are only infectious through lesions that are rubbed against your partner’s plating during intercourse.”

And Jazz definitely wouldn’t want his conjunx catching any of it. Or to catch it from his conjunx later. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have made being healthy a condition. Frag. “Fine. Be quick.” He hopped up onto the exam table and opened up his modesty armor. 

“Thank you, Drift.” 

“Don’t need your fragging gratitude.”

Ratchet kept his touch gentle and impersonal as he swabbed inside Drift’s spike and valve, sealing both samples into separate tubes. Then he checked over the spike visually, making no attempt to arouse. Drift didn’t hear fans or anything, didn’t feel anything but professional calmness in Ratchet’s EM field. The medic moved on to his valve, examining the folds and circuitry around the outside.

“I’m going to put my fingers inside your valve and open it up so I can look,” Ratchet warned, then paused. 

“Just get on with it.” So he could close up his panels and get this the frag over with.

He braced himself as the gloved fingers slid into him. Ratchet continued to be gentle, working the calipers apart so he could see inside without any trace that he was enjoying it. Drift thought that if he’d heard even one fan stutter on he probably would have ripped the medics optics out.

“Done,” he announced, withdrawing back to the sink and Drift snapped his panels closed. He sealed off his samples and shucked off the gloves again. “Do I need to swab and check your aft port?”

Drift was about to tell him to frag the frag off, but Barricade, a _lot_ of his Enforcer clients, had liked sticking things — batons, pipes, their spikes — up there. He couldn’t imagine Jazz’s conjunx being any different. “Yeah,” he admitted reluctantly.

Ratchet put on one more pair of gloves, then retrieved one more swab. “This is going to be like the valve exam,” he said, staying over by the sink. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Shuddering and growling, Drift turned around and bent over the table. “Get it over with.” 

Ratchet was quick and gentle and then he was back over at the sink pretending that Drift’s dignity wasn’t in a puddle on the floor. “I’ll get these packaged up to send to the lab,” he informed Drift, setting the rack of test tubes in a box. “When I get back, I’m going to need one more energon sample.”

“Why?” Drift backed up until his legs hit the side of the wagon-cage and he bristled his armor defensively.

“I’m assuming that, if your new employer cares so much about your health, he’s going to want me to sign off that you’re clean of drugs too.” 

Drift couldn’t argue with that. “Fine.”

“Meanwhile, I can tell you just from my visual exams of all of your orifices that you have some lesions. They don’t look like any disease I’m familiar with.” He wrote something on the side of the box. His name maybe? Something that looked like a date… “They look a little like electrical burns, but—”

“Are electric burns,” Drift interrupted. _Don’t you dare fragging ask…_

“Oh?” That got him a curious look as Ratchet paused in dealing with the samples. Drift just snarled back. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll just write a note about them on your certificate, stating that they need to be checked in a couple of decacycles. If they’ve changed or grown or done anything but start to heal, that will indicate something is amiss and you need treatment.”

 _Frag._ But there was nothing Drift could say to dissuade Ratchet. That meant he was going to need to finagle another doctor visit from somewhere somehow. Or find some way to come back to Ratchet and Drift didn’t even know if the medic would deign to see him if he didn’t live in the slums anymore.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t steal any more of my temp patches.”

Drift waved his hand in the air, mimicking a flapping mouth. _Don’t steal any more of my temp patches,_ he mocked silently at the mech’s back. It didn’t accomplish anything, but it made him feel better.

The medic left Drift alone in the room to recover from the unexpectedly horrible, invasive exam. Drift kind of felt like he’d feel better if Ratchet _had_ been trying to stick it in him and get off. He could have gotten something, some other concession, out of that.

Once he was sure the mech was gone, he went digging through the supplies over by the sink, looking for more temp patches. He was sure there were other meds and stuff here he could sell off for pocket change, since his new job still wouldn’t be paying shanix, but since he couldn’t read the labels, he couldn’t tell the difference between something valuable and chalk pills, and he really needed that health certificate so he couldn’t just snatch everything and bolt. 

He stashed about half the temp patches from the box under the cage with his gun, then made sure the box was back where he’d found it.

Ratchet came back in not just with a new pair of gloves and a new syringe, but a box of other things that made Drift eye him suspiciously. The medic didn’t give him time to wonder though. 

“Arm,” he demanded, and Drift rolled his optics and presented it, the patchwork of shoddily patched and repaired tubing at all. Of course, Ratchet had seen that earlier in the exam, and it made him frown again. This time, though, he didn’t let it go. “I know a psychologist I could refer you too.”

Drift didn’t know whether to bark out a laugh or snarl in offense. He ended up making an indecisive snort. “I’m not cutting.”

“There’s no shame in picking up self-soothing habits,” Ratchet pressed, slowly drawing a sample of his energon into the syringe. Drift hated seeing it go to waste, but... Jazz had promised more fuel. _Regular deliveries_ of fuel. He could afford this small loss for the greater gain. “Even painful or dangerous ones.”

“I’m not _self-soothing.”_ He wasn’t weak. “It’s the only way I can bring back fuel for them,” he waved at the quiet crate. 

“Oh.” Ratchet didn’t say anything more about the mess of temp patches on his lines. He finished up, withdrawing the needle and capping it off. He stepped away. “I brought some small dishes and hatchling kibble,” he said and Drift’s optics zeroed in on the suspicious box. “Would you pour some out for each of them and get them up on the exam table? Hopefully, a snack will coax them out of their shells so I can take a look.”

Drift did _not want_ to put Gasket’s hatchlings up on that exam table, unscheduled meal or no, but he’d made a deal and signed it with his spit. Ratchet had probably washed it off, but he could have used a tissue or something to wipe it first, and a higher-caste doctor definitely had the money to hire Weasel. 

Grumbling to himself, he checked over the contents of the box. Six small ceramic bowls, a box of hard nuggets Drift guessed were kibble simply because there wasn’t anywhere else the mentioned kibble could be, and a collection of blankets and toys. Balls with bells in them, little cars that rolled around on the floor, a fuzzy squishy pouch. Drift knew that gaskets and wires weren’t good enough toys for Blue and Green, but he still bristled at the sight. 

Still, he did what the medic had said to, mostly because if he didn’t then Ratchet would just do it and this way he had _some_ control of the process. He tasted the kibble — crunchy and sweet but otherwise pretty bland — then poured some into two of the bowls. 

“Use a blanket to keep them from rolling off the table,” Ratchet advised and Drift made the flappy hand motions before he pulled one of the blankets out to build them a nest. He wondered if he could steal any of this stuff. 

Blue and Green were awake, Drift could hear them clicking, but they refused to come out of their defensive little ball-bearing shells as he removed them from their cage-nest and put them on the new blanket nest. 

“What are their names?” 

Drift just shrugged. He knew Blue and Green were stupid names and he wasn’t going to tell the medic. As far as he was concerned, though, they could pick new names as soon as they could talk.

“I’ll just put their records in your file then. Stop hovering,” Ratchet snapped as he finally stepped back over from the sink. Drift just bristled and stayed right where he was while the medic set down a box of swabs and a bowl of cleaner next to the blanket nest. “Just the two of them?”

“Yeah.” Drift wasn’t telling him about the third egg.

“How old?” He stroked their shells gently with the swab, which if anything made them curl up tighter. He tried a couple more of the toys. A chew toy got an interested antennae-wave from Blue. A stick with a fuzzy bauble at the end got a response from Green. Neither of them came out to further investigate. 

“They hatched while I— during my last medical visit.” Drift watched Ratchet try and fail to coax them out with the kibble, and sighed. “You smell wrong,” he snapped. “Let me.”

“That was months ago,” Ratchet said, letting Drift offer the kibble. Green responded to Drift’s voice and ran its antennae over his fingers to check it was really him before unfolding to investigate the kibble. “They should be in their third instar by now.”

“Dunno what that means.” He coaxed Green into trying one of the nuggets. It took some doing. This cycle had already been full of new and frightening things and disruptions.

“It means these two are lagging behind developmentally.” Ratchet inserted himself back into the proceedings once Drift had gotten Green interested in the bowl and nibbling hungrily on the fuel. “Probably due to malnutrition.” 

“I feed them as much as I can.” Drift snarled but didn’t bristle or hiss, since if he did, Green would curl back up and Blue would never come out.

“It’s not youe fault that it’s not enough,” Ratchet said kindly. “But it obviously isn’t enough.”

“I’ll feed them more,” Drift promised, stroking Blue’s shell while it started to crunch its way through its own bowl. “I’ll have a job.”

Ratchet nodded. “I’ll send a couple more boxes of the kibble with you when you leave. Hopefully, that’ll hold you until your first paycheck.”

 _Don’t need your charity!_ Except Drift obviously did so he kept his trap shut.

He’d feel so much better if he could figure out what the frag Ratchet got out of this whole clinic business. There had to be something. No one did anything for free, but he wasn’t selling drugs or demanding protection money or fragging his patients so there went the three most common slums business models. But he was shiny and rich and didn’t live in a Dead End flophouse so there had to be _something._

Maybe he was embezzling from his mysterious donors?

“And I’m going to send some mineral tablets with you too, to hopefully help them catch up and start their molt,” Ratchet continued talking as he cleaned Green’s shell with the swab. Green was obviously not happy with this procedure and kept skittering away, but now that it was eating, it didn’t want to leave the bowl behind and so it just ended up skittering in a circle. “But what they really need is fuel. At least three meals a cycle, but really they should be eating as much as they can at this stage.”

“Whatever.” He’d try. 

The medic took advantage of Green’s skittering and the folds of the blanket to run the swab along the underside of its shell. “This one has mites. And I’m seeing some cyberfleas on the blanket. You have them too,” Ratchet added when Drift snarled again. He continued cleaning the mites off the squirmy hatchling. “I saw them along your spinal struts where you have trouble cleaning, but because of their size, these guys have a much higher parasite load. Fortunately, that’s relatively easy to fix. We’ll give all three of you a scrubbing and a sulfur dip while you’re here, and I’ll prescribe you a bottle of the dip so you can keep it up yourself until they’re all gone. They’ll be a little yellow-tinged, but the dip won’t hurt them at all,” he reassured before Drift could ask.

“Okay,” Ratchet addressed the hatchling in his hands a moment later. “Let’s see if I can get a listen at your fuel pump and spark.” He slid a stethoscope underneath to press the flat disk against its belly armor. He tried to distract Green from what he was doing with the bauble-toy, but Green started crying and squirming and Drift’s hackles went up even though he knew from experience that the medical tool didn’t hurt at all. “I don’t hear any problems there,” Ratchet said, setting the distressed hatchling down. He tried distracting it again with a couple different toys and the food, but Green just curled up into its defensive ball. 

“I’m a little worried about their processor development,” Ratchet stated, giving up and just tucking the blanket around the hatchling before he moved onto cleaning and checking over the other. “These guys are old enough that they should be curious about everything, chewing on and destroying whatever they get their pinchers on. Instead, they’re acting like they’re just a few cycles out of the shell, defensive and only interested in their caretaker — you — and fuel.”

“I do my best,” Drift repeated, scooping up Green to hold it up away from the scary exam table and the mean medic and his pokey things. Its shell opened a little in Drift’s arms and he wiggled his fingers next to its antennae to encourage it to wave them around. 

“I know. I’m just informing you of their status,” Ratchet said neutrally while he swabbed mites and fleas from under Blue’s shell. “Hopefully the issue is related to their overall delayed development and it will resolve itself with more fuel, but they also need stimulation and space to move around. Play. Socialization. You can’t just keep them in that cage.”

“I know!” Drift got it. He was a bad parent! 

Ratchet sighed. “I’ll send the toys and blankets with you. And I think I’ve got an audiobook I can give you. You can play it for them and they can start getting used to other mechs’ voices. I really do hope this processor issue is related to their fuel and it’ll improve once they’re eating more.”’

 _Feed them more. Don’t lock them in a cage._ Like Drift didn’t already know all that! That was why he was doing this! 

Blue squirmed and cried enough that Ratchet couldn’t press the stethoscope to its underside and so he ended up listening as best he could through the thicker upper shell once it had curled up and stopped moving. “I think this one has a pump murmur,” he said. “That could either cause serious problems later or clear up with its next molt. I’ll make a note to keep an optic on it, but otherwise, there’s nothing to do about it right now. I’m going to forgo drawing any energon samples,” Ratchet said, putting the stethoscope away. He tried distracting the hatchling again with toys, then kibble, both to no avail. “They’re too weak to afford the fuel loss, but I’m going to make a note for them to be tested as soon as they’re strong enough.” He tucked Blue into the blanket. “Last thing: I have some vaccines I’d like to give them — give all three of you, actually. Iron fatigue, rust blisters, spastic chills, blight, backfire, lock joint, and the last five vorns’ strains of engine cough. Those last won’t keep any of you from getting engine cough in the future, but by giving them the last five vornly vaccines, hopefully it’ll give their self-repair a head start on fighting future strains.”

“I got vaccines for backfire and blisters last time I was arrested,” Drift said, setting Green back down on the table next to its sibling. To his vindicated relief, given Ratchets dire words about its processor development, it immediately grabbed one of the ball-bells in its mouthparts and shook the toy vigorously. 

“I’ll just give you the booster then.” Ratchet held up a collection of syringes.

“Me first,” Drift insisted, holding out his arm to have it poked _again._

Ratchet only nodded. “You shouldn’t feel anything except maybe a little poke.” He swabbed the area with some disinfectant, then pressed the first syringe into his energon line. He quickly covered it with a ball of absorbent mesh and pressed down on the needle mark while he prepared the second syringe.

Drift really didn’t feel any of them. He hoped that was because they really didn’t hurt and not because his internals had been too abused by the drugs and cutting himself to feel anything.

Neither of the hatchlings cried when Ratchet poked them, which was something, though they both ended up in defensive balls again. 

“Done. I’ll just fetch the sulfur dip, show you how to use it, then leave you three alone for the night.” Ratchet collected up the empty syringes, the used tissues and swabs, the dirty cleanser, and the tube of Drift’s energon he was going to run the drug test on. “You can get started in the decontamination shower.”

“Fine.” Time to see how the little leeches reacted to their first-ever shower. Drift braced himself for screaming.

.

.

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◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

# Day Three

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.

.

All three of them were still tinged yellow when Drift stashed the hatchlings, their crate, and his gun in a dumpster in the warehouse district to meet up with Jazz. He’d made some alterations to the loft overnight, which made Drift suspicious, but as far as he could tell they were intended to be improvements. There was a curtain around the bathtub now that blocked it visually from the room. The energon dispenser had been filled up, and there were a single cup and a shrinkwrapped pack of copper, steel, and iron oxide flavor powders in one of the cupboards. The absolute minimum that a mech needed, at least in whatever world Jazz lived in.

There was also a mattress on the floor up against one wall, covered in a single fitted sheet. The loft was warm enough that it really didn’t need more and really that was already a luxury. Even if the mattress smelled musty like it had been in storage or bought second hand. It wasn’t like Drift was in a position to complain about _not_ sleeping on the hard tile. Besides, he knew what the bed was really for. 

Jazz read over the health certificate very carefully, then held out the keys. “Remember, no changing the locks without approval. I reserve the right to enter at any time to conduct repairs and do inspections. I’m required as your landlord to keep things in repair, so if you need anything, call. If a repairmech needs to be here, I will arrange for either you or me to be here while he works. I’m renting an unfurnished apartment so I don’t deal with your furniture and belongings. No pets. No drugs. No breaking the law.”

He didn’t say no hatchings. Not that Drift would have obeyed that one anyway. He was already planning on stashing them in a cupboard during “inspections” or whatever. 

“Gotcha.” Drift snatched the keys. 

Jazz nodded. Then he ubsubspaced another box. “After discussing the matter with Prowl, we decided gestation caps would be the best contraceptive for your situation. We don’t have the money right now to get you semi-permanent implant, and you’d need a prescription for orals, which, again we can’t afford the regular uninsured doctors’ visits that requires.”

“Yeah. I get it.” And it wasn’t like Drift could complain about that. They were already doing more to make sure he didn’t spark than every other client Drift had ever had. And that was on top of paying an absurd amount, in the form of this apartment and buying his fuel, for fidelity.

He already knew Ratchet couldn’t give out orals or vinyls. Those, apparently, came under the heading of “abetting” prostitution in the Dead End according to his mysterious donors, and as much as the medic was frustrated by it, there wasn’t any way he could work around it like he had to get Drift’s tests done. Ratchet _had_ made him promise to come back and have the electrical burns checked and to bring the hatchlings to check their development and hopefully have them tested for diseases once their fuel levels were better. Drift would have blown him off, but the appointment was already written on the health certificate, and Jazz could easily check that he’d gone. Plus, Ratchet had made him spit. 

“Prowl will use condoms as well when it’s feasible,” Jazz continued explaining. “But he can’t be put on an injectable transfluid inhibitor until after he and I conceive. After that, though, he’s already agreed. None of us wants him foisting a clutch onto you.”

“Yeah.”

“Would you like a demonstration on how to properly use the caps?” Jazz asked, and there it was. Drift knew they weren’t going to stick to just Prowl once a month, but two clients were still better than whoever wanted him that cycle and this was what he was being paid for.

“Yeah.” Besides, Jazz probably _would_ show him how to use the caps. That was something Drift kind of needed to know.

Jazz sat down next to the berth, and Drift obediently took his place on it. He opened the box to reveal it held five silicone disks, like suction cups, each in their own clear plastic wrapper. 

“These are reusable,” Jazz said, opening one of them. “And can be worn for up to two cycles. You wash them in boiling water with soap, then let them dry completely between uses.” Drift nodded. Instead of that being the impossible task it would have been on the streets, cleaning them and keeping them clean would be almost trivial in this apartment. “They fit over the entrance to your gestation sack, at the top of your valve,” he held it as a demonstration, pointing out how the curve would fit over the entrance. “It may take some practice to get them in the right place.” 

Practice Jazz was going to engage in right now. “I understand.”

“So to insert them, you fold one up,” Jazz folded his prop in half, then into thirds, “and curl it around your finger to get it past your calipers. Once at the top of your valve, release it. It should pop right open, but you’ll need to make sure it’s sitting flat and in place.”

Drift held out his hands when Jazz handed it to him. He waited for the command to lay back and let him show him how it was done...

“Once everything is done, clean out your valve with the transfluid contaminator,” Jazz shook the box and a bottle came tumbling out. “That’ll deactivate the transfluid. If you can, leave the cap in for a cycle just to be sure it’s all inert and your frame has flushed it out before removing it.”

And with that, Jazz stood and started heading to the door. 

“You’re not going to make me try it?” Drift blurted out in surprise.

Jazz looked back with a stony expression. “You can experiment on your own. Or ask the medic who did your exam and tests for help. Or I can give you a more hands-on demonstration if you want me to, but you did not agree to be molested by me in this arrangement.”

He hadn’t, but he hadn’t expected that to matter. “I’ll experiment,” he said meekly. 

Jazz left. Drift heard the lock engage behind him.

He waited for a klik for Jazz to get down the stairs, then scrambled to go retrieve Gasket’s hatchlings from the dumpster.

.

.

◇─◇──◇──◇─◇ 

.

.

“Frag.” 

The buzz from the door downstairs was unwelcome and ill-timed. Blue and Green had been fussy and refused to nap all cycle. Drift didn’t know if it was the noise from the warehouse or the fact that they hadn’t been left alone in their crate. Or maybe it was just all the extra fuel they were getting. Fussy. Hatchlings. Ugh. Drift had just finished up the hatchlings’ sulfur dip but hadn’t rinsed them or himself yet. They and the interior of the bathtub were both bright yellow.

Since no one except his two clients knew he was here or that the loft was occupied at all, Drift had to assume it was Jazz coming back for some reason. 

He couldn’t put Blue and Green in the cupboard with that sulfur stuff still on them. “Stay!” They didn’t listen, scratching at the sides of the ceramic tub. Growling, he pulled the curtain around the bathtub. At least they were out of sight. 

Quickly, he pushed all of the toys and stuff Ratchet had given him back into the crate and closed the door. Out of sight out of mind. Hopefully.

He rinsed his hands and hurried down the stairs.

He flung the door open and saw an Enforcer standing outside. With a bouquet of crystals. “What?”

The Enforcer bowed shallowly. “I’m Prowl,” he introduced himself with a pleasant, even voice. He held out the bouquet. “I wanted to introduce myself and get to know you. I felt I should also explain what I want from this arrangement.”

Mech wanted a frag. Well, frag. Here’s hoping Blue and Green weren’t easily traumatized. “Sure.” He took the bouquet. “Come on up.”

“What happened to your hands?” 

Drift looked down at his still yellow digits. “I have fleas and mites,” he said bluntly. “The medic gave me a sulfur bath, so they’ll be gone by our first race,” he promised. 

“I’m glad.” He stepped into the loft and Drift saw Prowl’s gaze land on the dog crate. But he didn’t comment, even though Jazz had said no pets. “Jazz said he hadn’t given you a vase, so I brought one.”

“Be my guest.” Drift set the bouquet down on the counter next to him while he tried to rinse this slag off his armor again. 

Prowl’s movements were controlled, graceful and almost timid as he set out the vase. It was nice, but plain glass. While Prowl fussed with the bouquet and getting it set out attractively on the bare, concrete counter, Drift wondered how much he could get if he sold the vase to a fence. 

But… cut crystals. A nice vase. Almost like the mech had come courting. Maybe Jazz had been wrong when he’d said not to expect gifts from Prowl?

He looked down at his hands. “Slag. This stuff’s not coming off.” 

“That’s alright. I did not mean to intrude. I can come back when you’re not busy.”

What was with these two and being so… respectful and slag? Drift didn’t get it and it made his plating crawl. But he didn’t exactly want Prowl hanging around. Plus, he’d like to put off traumatizing Blue and Green for as long as possible. “Sure.” 

“I really—” Prowl stopped. His doors went up. Drift wondered what had caught his—

 _Chee!_ Blue screeched indignantly. It and Green both scratched at the side of the tub and Drift heard one of them even catch hold of the plastic curtain and shake it. Frag.

“Look I’ll just…” Drift trailed off as Prowl stalked across the room and flung the curtain aside. Drift pushed himself between Prowl and the tub, too late to keep him from seeing. “I’m not busy right now,” he tried desperately anyway. He tried to push Prowl toward the flat berth. “Definitely not too busy for a blowjob. Right now? I’ll make it super good for you…”

“Please don’t.” Prowl refused to move, except to step around Drift to get a better view. “I won’t hurt them.”

“They’re not part of our agreement.” Drift pushed his way between them again. “Look. I’ll… I’ll take it up the aft. You can shock me on full power. Cuffs, screaming. Whatever you want. Everything you want, even.” He’d be a bleeding wreck afterward, he was sure, but… _Just leave them alone!_

Prowl let himself be steered away, but not toward the berth. Instead, he went over to the crate and opened it, looking inside. “I won’t touch them,” he promised. “These are their things?”

Drift shivered. It was useless, but he pulled the curtain back around the hatchlings to hide them from view. Blue _screeed_ in protest again. “Yeah.”

“And I’m guessing you’re not the one the medic prescribed the sulfur dip to,” the Enforcer mused as he poured the meager collection of blankets, toys, and fuel Ratchet had given them out of the crate. Blue’s gasket, the only one of their scrapyard “toys” he’d bothered to bring went tumbling across the floor. Prowl stopped it from bouncing too far with his foot then knelt down to pick it up.

“We all got fleas and mites,” Drift said cautiously.

“You should have mentioned them to Jazz,” Prowl said. He went from kneeling to sitting next to the pile and picked up a box of sweet kibble and read the back. Drift had no idea what it said so he had no idea what could be so interesting there but Prowl took a couple of kliks to finish. Then he set it aside. He started rearranging the things and contemplated the cage. “We’re going to have to adjust your fuel deliveries. They sleep in here?” 

“Yeah?” Drift didn’t know where this was going. It didn’t sound like Prowl was going to tell Jazz to get rid of them all. Or like he was planning… to do things to them. Instead he was arranging the blankets back into two nest-like shapes, one in the cage and one outside it.

Prowl separated the toys and the food and the bowls into their own neat piles. “I have a plushie in my subspace I use to calm hatchlings or sparklings I need to talk to on the job. Would they like to have it?”

No. Yes. Drift wasn’t sure. But he also wasn’t going to turn down a gift. “Sure.”

“Why don’t you finish getting them clean and introduce me properly?” Prowl suggested. He picked up the six dishes and the kibble Ratchet had foisted off on him. “I’ll get these washed and put away for you.” 

Drift didn’t want help. He wanted the Enforcer to just leave. And to stop acting so _weird._ But he was dependent on Prowl’s goodwill to keep everything Jazz had offered. If Prowl didn’t want him as his hetairo, all three of them were going to be out on the streets again by sunset. “Sure.”

While he rinsed the sulfur wash off the squirmy, fussy, hatchlings, he kept an optic on Prowl. He was slow and meticulous at scrubbing and eventually Drift figured he was faking because it definitely shouldn’t take that long to clean the dust off of six dishes. He didn’t point that out, though, because he didn’t want the Enforcer to come over _here._

Finally, they were as clean as they were going to get. Still yellow-tinged like Ratchet had said they’d be, now at least they looked like they were supposed to be silver. Probably the cleanest they’d been in their entire lives.

_Skrreeee!_

“Hush,” Drift told them, making sure he stood out of reach as he presented two rather upset spheres to Prowl. The Enforcer sat right there on the ground next to the counter, forcing Drift to follow suit. That put them closer to the ground and Drift didn’t have a good reason not to put the hatchlings on the ground too. He kept them close, though. He didn’t trust Prowl any more than he had Ratchet. 

He knew what Prowl wanted from him out of this arrangement, though. It didn’t make Prowl trustworthy, but it made Drift less suspicious about the whole affair. 

“Hello,” Prowl cooed softly, presenting a plush cybercat to them. “This is Mr. Pickles.”

It was a dumb name, but Drift had to admit that hearing something dumb like the words “Mr. Pickles” come out of the Enforcer’s mouth made him seem… a little harmless. 

Neither of the little balls fell for the ploy. “They’re a little dumb,” Drift explained. He wasn’t going to force them to come out and say hi, but he didn’t want the Enforcer mad at them either. “Not exactly the brightest LEDs.”

“What are their names?”

This time Drift couldn’t not answer. “Dunno. I call them Blue and Green.” He didn’t bother pointing out which was which, even though right now they couldn’t see their optics. 

“I hope you weren’t planning on claiming they were mine,” Prowl remarked, manipulating the toy cat’s paw so it batted gently against Green’s carapace. Green’s only response was to flick at it irritably with its antennae and curl up tighter. 

Well if he had been planning on being that dumb, he certainly wasn’t now. “They’re not even really mine.”

Prowl nodded, accepting that. “As you might have surmised, our monetary budget for keeping you is limited, and most of it is going towards your fuel. And now fuel for your dependants.”

Drift winced. “Figures, yeah.” 

“I do have some shanix on me currently. I had planned on taking you to dinner, to begin the fiction I am being seduced. However, I think a better use for it would be going to a used supplies store that is nearby. There we can pick up cloth, foam, flimsies, and crayons, and perhaps even a large box. We can do much better than using a broken turbohound crate as a nest, even on a very tight budget.”

“…Sure.”

“And you are going to need some locks on the cupboards and windows, and perhaps a gate across the doorway to keep them out of trouble. Fortunately, this place is very empty so it should be easier to hatchling proof it than if you had more clutter.”

What!?! “Sure,” Drift said because that was obviously what was expected of him. Even if Prowl wasn’t anything like he’d expected.

Weirdo.

.

.

.

End


End file.
